MEMENTO MORI
LAWRENCE WILSON ART GALLERY
AT THE DR HAROLD SCHENBERG ART CENTRE
18 OCTOBER - 13 DECEMBER 2014
Kate McMillan, Paradise Falls II, 2011-12, HD digital film, 3:28 mins. University of Western Australia Art Collection, University Senate Grant, 2012
Nathan Beard, Avunculus, Vale, 2014, Lenticular print on silk and vitrine with objects, variable dimensions. Courtesy of the artist
MEMENTO MORI
Let every man in mankind’s frailty Consider his last day; and let none Presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain.
Sophocles, Oedipus the King
In a culture that seeks eternal youth and persistently
celebrates beauty and the new, the concept of Memento
Mori, or meditation on death, may appear uncomfortable
and anachronistic. Instead, we try to flout death, putting
our faith in medicine and science to prolong our lives ever
further. When we do become ill, we are sent to a hospital
rather than being looked after at home. Illness and death
are no longer a part of family life, and fewer people in the
community have direct experience of caring for the seriously
ill, or of encountering dying. As a result, death is veiled;
people ‘pass away’ or ‘pass over’ or are ‘no longer with us.’
Yet for Sophocles and the poets, artists, philosophers
and theologians who followed his lead over the following
two millennia, being aware of your ultimate demise and
using that knowledge to direct and shape your life was
an important precondition of existence. For the classical
world, the idea of carpe diem (seize the day) suggested
a more hedonistic approach, enjoy life while you can,
but Christianity changed all that. When congregations in
Medieval cathedrals sang Media Vita In Morte Sumus (In the
midst of life we are in death), it was a prompt to reassess
their moral progress as they moved toward the certainty
of death. “In all thy works remember thy last end, and
thou shalt never sin” (Ecclesiasticus 7:40). The concept
of a judgment day, when the final accounting was made in
purgatory, and souls found wanting sent into Hell, was a
persuasive theological tool and a popular subject for artists.
Allegoria Sacra by the Russian collective AES+F is the final
part of a trilogy that along with The Last Riot (2005-2007)
and The Feast of Trimalchio (2009-2010) interrogates
the concepts of purgatory, hell and heaven within a
contemporary context. The four Moscow-based artists
gained international recognition when their impressive
projects, which weave together Hollywood with high
fashion, advertising, mass media and popular culture with
a hybrid of world visual cultures, were featured in two
successive Venice Biennials (2007 & 2009). Their mashup of cultural history is achieved through a sophisticated
digital collage of still images, animated to create
seductive, hyper-real video panoramas.
Created in response to a 15th century painting of purgatory
by Giovanni Bellini, AES+F locate their souls awaiting
reassignment in an international airport lounge.
“In Allegoria Sacra, we really placed the heroes
of Bellini, sometimes literally recognisable, in a
waiting area of an airport out of which no plane will
ever take off again. Only the dreams and visions
of “passengers,” in which the viewer can guess
something, drive the change of forms and ghostly
movement. Purgatory, in accordance with Catholic
faith, is a state in which the souls of dead sinners
or righteous are waiting for Hell or Paradise. Our
airport is undetermined in size, time and geography
liminal space – a place of transition to a new state. In
dreams of our characters, it is at one time covered by
a blizzard, at another by the hot sands of a desert and
yet another by a wild jungle. This, for us, is a place
of collective memory, Purgatorium, where sacred
symbols of various cultures mix. It is a place where
the incompatible combines, where it is possible
for Ganesh to meet a Centaur, the past (demoncannibals) to meet the future (angels-attendants
from 2001: A Space Odyssey), where it is possible for
old man Job to reincarnate into a child-mutant1.”
A key component of this exhibition was the invitation
to four Western Australian artists to create and exhibit
work that examines current attitudes toward death and
dying. Richard Lewer responded with his Last Will and
Testament, writ large on sheets of pegboard and notarised
by witnesses and his lawyer. As well as distributing his
assets he specifies the music to be played as his coffin
is lowered (Careless Love), a burial site and the type of
service he desires. Perhaps our last will and testament
remains the most resilient of all Memento Mori in
contemporary society.
For Andrew Nicholls the Dance of Death (Danse Macabre),
when skeletons lead victims to their graves, was the
catalyst to create a 13-metre-long chorus line of naked
men facing their ultimate fate. Confronting their death with
equanimity, acquiescence or reticence they dance toward
the moment of truth. All the participants are well known to
Nicholls — two are artists included in the current exhibition
— so it becomes a very personal acknowledgment of life’s
end rather than a threatening image of impending death.
That image is left to Susan Norrie, who creates the dark
and dangerous space where judgment occurs in her 2005
work Be seeing you (Dance of the dead).
Nathan Beard, on the other hand, confronts the death of
a near relative, his uncle, and both celebrates his life and
memorialises his death. His Thai cultural heritage provides
a rich seam of imagery that he mines with care and
respect to recreate the vibrancy of his life and a dazzling
commemoration of his death. His uncle’s shrine, which
includes a lenticular print that shifts imagery with your
orientation, silk banners and a vitrine holding his remains,
creates an extravagant and passionate family memorial.
The echo of death and decay, degeneration and corruption,
infuse all David C. Collins’ photographic tableaux. Just
as we discover within the delicate melodies of Mozart
and Mahler the low rumble of imminent mortality, so
within Collins’ work we are confronted with a sense of our
humanity. In the midst of life we are in death, and through
these astonishing cinematic, styled still images he creates
an extraordinary world of beauty and excess into which he
weaves a compelling narrative about life and death.
Another of the great Memento Mori tropes is the Isle of the
Dead, a place where we all ultimately arrive as passengers
on a vessel steered by Charon, the boatman. Inexorably
we are led to its shores. Kate McMillan appropriates this
image of ultimate loss in her video Paradise Falls II to
highlight the plight of Aboriginal people condemned to
incarceration on Rottnest Island in Western Australia.
Now a place of pleasure and escape, it remains in the
consciousness of Noongar people a dreaded destination, a lost paradise, eternal prison.
Within the Christian world pondering on death emphasises
the emptiness and transience of earthly pleasures,
ambition and self-aggrandisement, all of which mean
nothing at the end of life. One of the most potent ways
to prompt this reflection is by charging everyday objects
with the power to signify. In Robyn Stacey’s Vanitas still
life Leidenmaster 1 and Ocea Sellar’s Still Life video
series, objects are given symbolic meaning; skulls remind
the viewer of the certainty of death, flowers that earthly
pleasures fade and decay and butterflies, bubbles and
smoke denotes the ephemeral nature of life and fleeting
time. It is a complex pictorial language that illustrates the
concept of transience in its multifarious forms. Margaret
Preston transformed her Still life with sea shells and
bowl of flowers into a meditation on dying while Pam
Debenham’s Still Life takes the process one step further
by replacing the flowers with instruments of mass
destruction, Exocet missiles and nuclear bombs, quite
literally the harbingers of death.
AES+F, Allegoria Sacra (still), 2011, 3 channel video, Acquired through the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors Director’s Project 2011 Art Gallery of South Australia.
Of all these symbols, the skull remains the most persuasive
image of mortality. In the two small works by Paul Uhlmann
and Sam Leach we are reminded of Hamlet’s soliloquy on
mortality, recalling Yorick’s ribald wit and jocularity while
holding his skull at the graveside. Beloved symbol of goths
and metal heads, the skull persists as a symbol of danger,
disputation and death. Although not a skull, Charles
Blackman’s Girl with Flowers prompts us to contemplate
our humanity through a subtle and powerful juxtaposition of
a young girl’s black and empty face, contrasted with a posy
of flowers, also doomed to die.
The arts provide powerful stimuli for meditation and
contemplation. They can provoke and infer, allude and
announce abruptly, they often take us by surprise and
invariably open up a space for reflection. The four musical
compositions commissioned from James Bradbury,
Michael Grebla, Mark Holdsworth and Drew Woolley,
played within the Westpac Gallery, are integral to the
1.
curatorial rationale of Memento Mori. They encourage us
to reflect on our attitudes to death and in tandem with the
other works in the exhibition provide a prompt sheet for
contemplation.
Memento Mori have been used as a stimulus to ponder on
the brevity of life and use that knowledge as a guide for
living. In an age when we try to ignore death, the arts make
us aware of what it is to be alive and the responsibility we
owe to ourselves, to our families and to our communities
as participants in this extraordinary theatre of existence.
Ted Snell
Curator
C. A. Xuan Mai Ardia, interview with AES+F, Art Radar, accessed 25 August 2014 http://artradarjournal.com/2013/11/08/a-new-silk-roadrussian-art-collective-aesfs-on-allegoria-sacra-in-asia-interview/
Charles Blackman, Girl with Flowers, 1959, oil on composition board, 121.9 x 76.2 cm. University of
Western Australia Art Collection, Tom Collins Bequest Fund, 1960
Richard Lewer with Tony Garifalakis, please god watch over me tomorrow, 2013, enamel paint
on poster print, 100cm x 70cm. Courtesy of the artists and Hugo Michell Gallery
LIST OF WORKS
AES+F, Allegoria Sacra, 2010-11, 39.39 minute, 3 channel moving
image with sound. Acquired through the Contemporary Collectors
Director’s Project, Art Gallery of South Australia*
Andrew Nicholls, Quod fuimus, estis; quod sumus, vos eritis, 2014,
archival ink pen on watercolour paper, 76 x 1340 cm. Courtesy of
the artist
* Gift of John and Jane Ayers, Candy Bennett, Jim and Helen Carreker,
Cherise Conrick, James Darling AM and Lesley Forwood, Scott and Zöe
Elvish, Richard and Jan Frolich, Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett, Dr Michael
Hayes and Janet Hayes, Ulrike Klein, Gosia Kudra Schild, Ian Little and Jane
Yuile, Dr Peter McEvoy, David and Pam McKee, Hugo and Brooke Michell,
Jane Michell, Peter and Jane Newland, John Phillips, Dr Dick Quan, Paul and
Thelma Taliangis, Tracey and Michael Whiting, GP Securities and anonymous
donors through the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors
Director’s Project 2011 Art Gallery of South Australia
Margaret Preston, Still life with sea shells and bowl of flowers,
1955, oil on canvas, 39.4 x 44 cm. Cruthers Collection of Women’s
Art CCWA 359
Nathan Beard, Avunculus, Vale, 2014, Lenticular print, print on silk
and vitrine with objects, variable dimensions. Courtesy of the artist
Ocea Sellar, Still life series, 2007, high definition video. Cruthers
Collection of Women’s Art CCWA 879b
Charles Blackman, Girl with Flowers, 1959, oil on composition
board, 121.9 x 76.2 cm. University of Western Australia Art
Collection, Tom Collins Bequest Fund, 1960
Robyn Stacey, Leidenmaster 1, 2003, Type C print, 96 x 150 cm.
University of Western Australia Art Collection, University Senate
Grant, 2008
David C Collins, Amygdala, 2014, Type C photographic print, 3 x 83 x
120 cm. Courtesy of the artist
Paul Uhlmann, Skull, 2014, oil on canvas, 41 x 31 cm. University of
Western Australia Art Collection, University Senate Grant, 2014
Pam Debenham, Still Life, 1984, colour screenprint, 87.8 x 62 cm.
Collection of Elaine Baker and John Cruthers
MUSIC COMPOSED FOR MEMENTO MORI
Sam Leach, Thanatos deer, 2007, oil and resin on copper, 30 x 20
cm. Collection of Felicity Johnston and Richard Barker
Richard Lewer, Last Will & Testament, 2010, acrylic on Peg Board,
240 x 700 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery
Richard Lewer with Tony Garifalakis, please god watch over me
tomorrow, 2013, enamel paint on poster print, 100cm x 70cm.
Courtesy of the artists and Hugo Michell Gallery
Kate McMillan, Paradise Falls II, 2011-12, HD digital film, 3:28
mins. University of Western Australia Art Collection, University
Senate Grant, 2012
Susan Norrie, Be seeing you (Dance of the dead), 2005, oil on
canvas, 140 x 133 cm. Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art CCWA
882
James Bradbury, Anamorphosis, 2014, bass clarinet and flute,
Ashley Smith: Bass Clarinet, Jonty Coy: flute, 3 mins
Michael Grebla, Cheyne-Stokes, 2014, solo bass clarinet, Ashley
Smith: bass clarinet, 4 mins
Mark Holdsworth, Primrose, 2014, string trio, Jasmin ParkinsonStewart: violin, Eunise Cheng: viola, Elizabeth Moss: cello, 5 mins
Drew Woolley, Joe Christmas, 2014, piano/harmonica and bass
clarinet, Drew Woolley: piano, harmonica, Ashley Smith: bass
clarinet, 4 mins
MEMENTO MORI CAMPUS PARTNER
We would like to acknowledge and thank our campus partner.
AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
FOR THE HISTORY OF EMOTIONS
Emotions shape individual, community and national identities.
The Australian Research Centre of Excellence for the History
of Emotions uses historical knowledge from Europe 1100 1800, to understand the long history of emotional behaviours.
Established in 2011, under the Australian Research Centre of
Excellence for the History of Emotions (ARC EHE), the Centre’s
research aims to improve the social, cultural and emotional
welfare of modern Australians.
Headquartered at The University of Western Australia, the
Centre has nodes across the country at the universities of
Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland and Sydney. It has signed
partnership agreements with five European Universities and
developed collaborative research links with scholars from
international institutions in 25 countries.
www.historyofemotions.org
CURATOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ongoing partnership between the Cultural Precinct and
the Institute for Advanced Studies generates many bounties
and this project is one more to add to an impressive list.
Susan Takao suggested a symposium addressing the concept
of Memento Mori and wondered if an exhibition might
accompany it, of course we said yes. Immediately I thought
of the wonderful work Nick Mitzevich had purchased for the
Art Gallery of South Australia by the Russian collective AES+F,
Allegoria Sacra. Nick generously approved the loan and agreed
to participate in the symposium. With such a beginning it was
clear this project was blessed. Four locally based artists then
agreed to create works for the exhibition and I would like to
thank Richard Lewer, David C. Collins, Nathan Beard and
Andrew Nicholls for their enthusiasm and commitment to the
project.
We are fortunate to have the School of Music on our campus
and I would like to particularly thank Ashley Smith for
coordinating the project to commission four new short pieces
to be played within the gallery as part of the exhibition. I would
also like to thank Matthew Norman and Jamiela Khan from the
postgraduate student on-line journal TROVE, who coordinated
the commissioning of poems on the theme of Memento Mori for
this project.
Thank you also to my colleagues in University of Western
Australia Museums who always excel in each aspect of
presenting and managing our exhibition program. I am
extremely grateful to them all for their sensitivity, their
diligence and their alacrity to respond to each new challenge
with enthusiasm.
I am also grateful to Andrew Lynch from the Centre for the
History of Emotions who was immediately enthusiastic about
becoming our Campus Partner for this exhibition.
Cover image: Robyn Stacey, Leidenmaster 1 (deatil), 2003, Type C print, 96 x 150 cm.
University of Western Australia Art Collection, University Senate Grant, 2008.
Published by the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at The University of Western Australia,
2014. All rights reserved.
ISBN 978 1 876793 57 9
DR HAROLD SCHENBERG ART CENTRE
LAWRENCE WILSON ART GALLERY
OPEN TUES - SAT 11AM - 5PM
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, Australia 6009
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